Beautiful but dirty-faced children followed us around and I bought them lollipops. One five-year-old boy appeared with a four-inch bug on a string leash and all three of our kids played with it. We felt millions of miles away from booming Beijing or Shanghai.

The next day we hiked across rice paddies and through two villages. As we neared a bridge that would take us to our van, I stopped into a little store to buy water and cookies. In a back room, a group of village women were eating lunch. One called out, "Chi fan!" "Chi fan!" (Eat, eat!), handed me a bowl of congee -- rice porridge -- and gently pushed me onto a little stool. The congee tasted like glue. Looking at a sea of smiling faces, I smiled and said "Hao chi!" (Tastes good!).

They pulled up another chair and handed Rebecca a bowl. Soon bowls of cooked food came our way, including some spicy meat that could have been anything but made the congee surprisingly good. The kids ate cookies and watched us with amusement.

We lunched at a local barbecue joint hard by the banks of the churning Bala River. It was part of my plan to give the kids more freedom -- the place, which we had passed the day before, had a large, pebbly river beach where I envisioned stone skipping and fisherman watching. Duan was a little uneasy, however, and I soon understood why; the sanitary conditions were less than exemplary.

But as we walked around the outdoor dining area waiting for our food, the kids started playing with a gaggle of children, which included fellow diners and Miaos from a neighboring village. A family offered us beer and insisted we sample the meat and fish they were grilling on a hibachi. Our food arrived and we took over a nearby gazebo and invited our new friends to join us.

Eventually, all the men were drinking beer while the women watched the kids catch crabs and play tag. It is remarkable how wild-eyed boys can find each other and mind meld without being able to speak more than a few words. We lingered for hours.

There are countless motivations for traveling and many people, including us, largely abandon "throwing yourself into the deep end to see if you can swim" once kids arrive. The risks simply feel too high. It's much easier to hit a beach -- even here, where Thailand is just a flight away.

But kids too can tap into something deep within themselves when forced to stretch their comfort zones. As we finally said our goodbyes at our long lunch, Jacob gave me a big hug and said, "This was the best lunch ever." I have never been prouder of him.

It was not an obvious destination. As China's poorest province, with a per capita income of $614, Guizhou lacks many amenities a vacationing family of five might normally seek -- swimming pools, established tourist sites like caves, even established hiking or biking trails. Few people we know have been there.